Orlando penthouse prices are soaring

Five years after local real-estate professionals wrote off the downtown Orlando condominium market as a dark-windowed wasteland of half-empty towers, urban lifestyles and downtown views have sparked bidding wars on upscale units.

One tipping point in Orlando's condo market was the recent $1.3 million cash sale of a marble-laden penthouse on the top floor of the Sanctuary downtown. The buyer was former hedge-fund executive Joseph Haleski, one of the new owners of the resurrected Solar Bears minor-league hockey team, records show. He declined to be interviewed.

"I think mainly it's just a lot of buyers who had been hesitating to see where the market would bottom out," said Cristian Michaels, director of sales and marketing for the Vue at Lake Eola. "But the days of bank-owned and short sales are pretty much over, and those are just not available. It's almost becoming a seller's market again."

Overall, Orlando's condo sales are down about 10 percent from this time last year, but high-end units are selling like never before. Consider that last month alone, more million-dollar condos sold in the Orlando area than during the previous three years combined. In a typical year, less than 10 of those top-end units sell. In the first quarter of this year, 41 sold, according to records from the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.

The Sanctuary penthouse set a recent record for downtown condo prices. It sold about a month after it hit the market, which is less than a third of the average time it takes Orlando-area houses to sell. With panoramic views of Lake Eola and the downtown skyline, the 4,050-square-foot residential perch went for $320 a square foot — three times more than the going sales price for existing homes in Orange County.

Downtown real-estate specialist Shelby Norwich, who represented the buyer in the Sanctuary penthouse sale, said the downtown condo market has become hot.

"On a deal today, my buyer is getting outbid by people offering more than the asking price and that's for a condo conversion," said Norwich, an agent with Olde Town Realty. "It's absolutely crazy. I'm seeing it at every price range, with multiple offers on everything."

Developers launched a downtown condo-building boom in 2004 and 2005. Some of the projects were barely completed before the real-estate market crashed.

Orlando sales prices fell 52 percent for condos, from 2008 to 2011, and 37 percent for single-family houses, Florida Association of Realtors records show. Condo projects such as 55 West on Church Street in downtown Orlando transitioned to rentals.

The high-end condo market was particularly hard hit with limited financing options, even for those buyers who could qualify for penthouse-style mortgages. Financing options continue to limit the pool of upscale-condo buyers.

"It's not a lack of penthouse buyers; it's the lack of ability to get financing," Michaels said.

While a shortage of listings has helped drive up prices for both the condominium and the single-family markets in Orlando, one luxury-sales expert said rising fuel prices appear to be boosting the downtown market for both buyers and for renters.

"Remember when gas prices went to $4 a gallon? That was when we first saw the downtown market take off," said Roger Soderstrom, broker for StirlingSotheby'sInternational Realty in Orlando. "We just found that when the gas prices spike, people have a desire to live in the city and work there rather than commute in."